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	<title>chaotic.signal</title>
	
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	<description>whatever Phil it's just random crap</description>
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		<title>Zen droid</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chaoticsignal/~3/-iTF4jlzz0g/zen-droid</link>
		<comments>http://chaoticsignal.com/2011/09/14/zen-droid#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:57:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Skyfall</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Unsorted]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Android]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://chaoticsignal.com/?p=3009</guid>
		<description />
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><nothing></p>
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		<title>Red Faction Armageddon Review</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chaoticsignal/~3/Eoapdb5Po4c/red-faction-armageddon-review</link>
		<comments>http://chaoticsignal.com/2011/07/11/red-faction-armageddon-review#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Jul 2011 19:48:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Skyfall</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PS3]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Red Faction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[xbox 360]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://chaoticsignal.com/?p=3001</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Though I have not played many of the red faction games I was always intrigued by the way in which they attempted to add terrain and building destruction to games to make games feel a little more real world. There&#8217;s nothing stranger than firing a massive energy weapon at some enemies obliterating them but leaving [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Though I have not played many of the red faction games I was always intrigued by the way in which they attempted to add terrain and building destruction to games to make games feel a little more real world. There&#8217;s nothing stranger than firing a massive energy weapon at some enemies obliterating them but leaving the world around them completely intact. </p>
<p>There have been a few red faction games touting the destructible world mechanics and as the march of technology moves on so too does the ability to destroy. Other games have started adding features like this, most notably Battlefield Bad Company, which although has great destruction is limited by the fact that destruction has to be synced to everyone and so can&#8217;t be too complex. The destruction in Red Faction Armageddon is exrtemely complex and sometimes looks stunning to watch.</p>
<p><span id="more-3001"></span>Armageddon carries on where the previous games left off, Mars still in the swing of some kind of conflict currently with an ugly looking cultist named Hale. The long and the short of it is that in Armageddon you are tricked into releasing an ancient enemy on Mars, one which thrives in Mars&#8217; original atmosphere. Hence Hale blows the terraformer keeping Mars habitable to humans. These bug creatures are your main enemy and you&#8217;ll be killing thousands of them. They are faceless, emotionless and most of all annoying, they flit about from wall to wall annoying you with some kind of bio lasers. </p>
<p>The game starts out giving you plenty of scope to destroy stuff, there&#8217;s a smattering of enemies and it&#8217;s quite east to mess around flinging buildings at them and then destroying everything in sight with the plethora of weapons to earn salvage. This part of the game for me was the sweet spot, I was able to play around and enjoy the weapons and physics and sample what makes this game unique. However, this didn&#8217;t last long and as you progress through the levels destructible buildings and opportunities to enjoy the &#8216;game&#8217; dwindle. By the end you&#8217;re pretty much just playing a sub-par shooter with droves and droves of annoying enemies. </p>
<p>That said, Armageddon is not a bad game, it&#8217;s probably worth a rent and took me around 5 or 6 hours to complete, aside from the lack of terrain to destroy you&#8217;ll enjoy the plethora of overpowered and spectacular weaponry, from the rifle that vaporises enemies in a blue haze to the singularity cannon that sucks everything in before exploding rather satisfyingly. There&#8217;s something else that Armageddon does extremely well with weapons too and that&#8217;s ammo, so many games give you a bunch of great weapons but due to lack of ammo you either get to use them very little or hoard the ammo &#8216;just in case&#8217;. Armageddon does away with this by using the same ammo for every weapon, you can pick up small canisters of ammo which replenish any &#8216;small arms&#8217; you have equipped and bigger boxes which have ammo for everything you&#8217;re carrying. This works great as it&#8217;s always one of my main complaints about shooter games, you can use whatever weapons you want and the ammo and enemies are balanced in a way that will make you use as many different weapons as possible.</p>
<p>The other thing that Armageddon does very well is the destruction (when it&#8217;s there). You can explode, vaporise, fling and shockwave buildings and walls to pieces. One of the greatest gems of the game is the magnet gun, you fire one shot at an object and another at another object or wall and the first projectile is pulled towards the other bringing anything it&#8217;s attached to with it. It is a great way of destroying buildings and even throwing them at enemies to kill them. Along with the other very powerful, nice looking and sounding weapons you will have a ton of fun destroying.</p>
<p>But how does Armageddon solve the age old problem that destroying everything around you will cause you not to be able to complete levels? Our hero sports the &#8216;nanoforge&#8217; which with a quick click rebuilds anything and everything you point it at. The nanoforge is also used throughout gameplay to repair objects in order to complete objectives. The same is also true of your destructive powers, but used to a lesser degree.</p>
<p>At first glance everything in Armageddon is right from the physics, weapons and graphics to the great controls. The cracks appear as you get deeper into the game where you stop engaging enemies in wide open arenas full of destructible buildings and you start hunting insects in cramped tunnels. It&#8217;s a real shame because Armageddon could have been a real jewel of gaming, it could have been what Red Faction should have been but they dropped the ball by making little use of the destruction and making it a dull, run of the mill shooter. </p>
<p>Other problems include framerate issues when you destroy certain complex buildings and the pacing of the campaign, there are cutscenes sometimes every few minutes and the game really doesn&#8217;t seem to ramp up the challenge as you go it rather decides just to trundle along and then increase the number of enemies tenfold near the very end and the last few &#8216;missions&#8217; seemed to take forever.</p>
<p>In conclusion, give it a rent enjoy a playthrough and then send it back then reminisce about what could have been.</p>
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		<title>Sync your Angry Birds saves via Dropbox!</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chaoticsignal/~3/V5Suwdv0g90/sync-your-angry-birds-saves-via-dropbox</link>
		<comments>http://chaoticsignal.com/2011/05/28/sync-your-angry-birds-saves-via-dropbox#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 28 May 2011 18:47:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Skyfall</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Android]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Angry Birds]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dropbox]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://chaoticsignal.com/?p=2957</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If there&#8217;s one game I love playing on my tablet or phone it&#8217;s Angry Birds&#8230; The only problem is when I&#8217;m at work playing on my phone I&#8217;ve got different progress to what I have when I&#8217;m playing at home on my tablet. Angry Birds Sync has the answer, just like other Angry Birds backup [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If there&#8217;s one game I love playing on my tablet or phone it&#8217;s Angry Birds&#8230; The only problem is when I&#8217;m at work playing on my phone I&#8217;ve got different progress to what I have when I&#8217;m playing at home on my tablet. <a href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mimminito.angrybirdssync" target="_blank">Angry Birds Sync</a> has the answer, just like other Angry Birds backup apps it will backup all three current games to SD. Unlike other backup programs however you can backup to Dropbox making it a sinch to keep your Angry Birds progress persistent across all of your Android devices.</p>
<p><center><br />
<a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/698818430.jpg" target="_blank" rel="lightbox[abs]"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/210/400/uploads/698818430.jpg"></a> <a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/698070836.jpg" target="_blank" rel="lightbox[abs]"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/210/400/uploads/698070836.jpg"></a> <a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/773664538.jpg" target="_blank" rel="lightbox[abs]"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/210/400/uploads/773664538.jpg"></a><br />
</center></p>
<p>It also makes switching devices just as easy, all you have to do is pop your Dropbox credentials into the program and the rest is a doddle. As above it supports Angry Birds, Seasons and Rio and with just a few clicks you&#8217;re on your way. The program works perfectly and just as important the dev is friendly and helpful. The only feature I would like to see added would be a one click backup/restore and to be able to create a desktop shortcut to initialise these.</p>
<p>More info from the market and a link below:</p>
<table width="100%">
<tr>
<td>
Perfect for those of you who have a new Android Tablet, running Honeycomb or otherwise, such as the Motorola Xoom, EeePad Transformer or one of the Galaxy Tab&#8217;s! Install this app on both your phone and tablet, and you will be able to sync your progress from your phone to your tablet! Carry on from where you left off!</p>
<p>Features:<br />
- Local Backup (SD Card/External Storage)<br />
- DropBox Backup<br />
- Backup Type Selection<br />
- Angry Birds Application Selection (Backup and Restore)<br />
- Clear local Backups and Restores (Cached)<br />
- Share the App!
</td>
<td>
<center><a href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mimminito.angrybirdssync" target="_blank"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/181141299.png"></a></center></td>
</table>
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		<title>Riptide GP Tegra Review (Android)</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chaoticsignal/~3/HeHTss2J9-M/riptide-gp-tegra-review-android</link>
		<comments>http://chaoticsignal.com/2011/05/22/riptide-gp-tegra-review-android#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 22 May 2011 13:37:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Skyfall</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Android]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Honeycomb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Riptide GP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tegra 2]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://chaoticsignal.com/?p=2986</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Water, water everywhere So, I&#8217;m going a bit Honeycomb crazy this past week or so with reviews and I&#8217;ve also spent quite a bit on the Android Market. Riptide GP is the latest Tegra 2 exclusive title to hit the market and has already had a lot of positive press. As you have probably seen [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captainr"><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/900/900/uploads/552021461.jpg" target="_blank" title="" rel="lightbox[riptide]"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/150/150/uploads/552021461.jpg" width="150" border="0" class="border" alt=""></a><br />Water, water everywhere</div>
<p>So, I&#8217;m going a bit Honeycomb crazy this past week or so with reviews and I&#8217;ve also spent quite a bit on the Android Market. </p>
<p>Riptide GP is the latest Tegra 2 exclusive title to hit the market and has already had a lot of positive press. As you have probably seen from screenshots Riptide GP is a water racing game vaguely similar to Waverace&#8230; The similarity ends there however, from the futuristic jet-skis to the varied course locations Riptide GP is a game of it&#8217;s own. </p>
<p><span id="more-2986"></span>From the moment you load up the game you know you&#8217;re in for something special, the title screen has a rippling body of water as the backdrop and the water not only looks great but seems to undulate and move in the way you would expect water to. This is one of the main selling points of Riptide and one that was lost on me until I actually played the game. Water not only waves and ripples in a realistic fashion but it also looks smooth and reflects the environment in a way that I haven&#8217;t even seen on a home console. I can&#8217;t explain in words how great it looks when someone goes racing past you with a real wake behind them. Riptide GP really is a console quality game for mobile devices and raises the bar for Tegra 2 devices.</p>
<p>Play wise there is a lot to do in the game too, it seems to have as much depth as a lot of racers around and definitely one of the most fully featured racing games I have played on Android. You can choose to play single races, time trials or championships with a variety of different craft and in 3 different difficulty settings. They all play well too, I&#8217;ve tried a bit of everything and the learning curve seems to be pretty good too with the easiest setting being really easy and the hardest being quite challenging. Controls are a simple but very effective tilt based affair, I have had no problems with the controls so far.</p>
<div class="captainl"><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/900/900/uploads/682128822.jpg" target="_blank" title="" rel="lightbox[riptide]"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/150/150/uploads/682128822.jpg" width="150" border="0" class="border" alt=""></a><br />Getting air</div>
<p>One of the features that adds more depth to the game is the stunt feature, when getting air from waves and ramps you can perform a variety of moves by wiping your fingers over the sides of the screens. Thankfully the system is incredibly easy to get used to using both thumbs you can make gestures to choose the stunt you want to do, stunts don&#8217;t give you points but do add to your boost meter so you can boost past your rivals at the most opportune time or get some extra air from a ramp. Of course if you mistime a stunt you will be thrown off your craft with great rag-doll physics. Riptide also gives you plenty of variety with shortcuts and hidden ramps.</p>
<p>In a surprising trend with new Tegra games Riptide GP also employs Openfeint to track your scores online with other players. I&#8217;m a big fan of Openfeint. If you haven&#8217;t used it before it&#8217;s basically a leader board and achievement system very much like xbox live, you can pop in and see where your score lies on a global leaderboard and earn achievements to boost your overall score, I&#8217;m somewhere around 5k at the moment <img src='http://chaoticsignal.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':D' class='wp-smiley' />  I enjoy getting achievements in games and competing on leaderboards so this adds to the experience.</p>
<p>Finally Riptide GP also has some configurable options, you can adjust the resolution of the graphics to your taste to squeeze every last frame per second out of your device or to make sure that you&#8217;re getting the best visuals you can&#8230; It&#8217;s worth checking out when you first start the game as the settings are not max by default, I&#8217;m currently testing different settings, but I think 2 notches from top seems to be the best trade off for framerate vs visual quality on my 10&#8243; tablet.</p>
<p>In conclusion, there is not a bad thing I can say about Riptide GP, it is a very solid mobile/tablet game and shows very effectively the power of Tegra 2. I would recommend Riptide to anyone who has a Tegra device, you will have hours of fun and if you&#8217;re like me you&#8217;ll be flashing it to your friends to show them the excellent water effects. </p>
<p><center><br />
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Also available on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkNUjILt-s4" target="_blank">Youtube</a></center></p>
<p><center><strong><img style="vertical-align: middle; margin-bottom: 1px;" src="/icon/bullet.png" alt="" /> <a href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.vectorunit.blue" target="_blank">Riptide GP on the Android Market</a><br />
<img style="vertical-align: middle; margin-bottom: 1px;" src="/icon/bullet.png" alt="" /> <a href="http://www.vectorunit.com/riptide-gp/" target="_blank">Riptide GP official site</a></strong></center></p>
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		<title>Best Tablet Apps for Android Honeycomb (May 2011)</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chaoticsignal/~3/CbemWA9b4lE/best-tablet-apps-for-android-honeycomb-may-2011</link>
		<comments>http://chaoticsignal.com/2011/05/15/best-tablet-apps-for-android-honeycomb-may-2011#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 15 May 2011 15:40:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Skyfall</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Gadgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Android]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Apps]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Honeycomb]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tablets]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://chaoticsignal.com/?p=2937</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I have had my Tablet for less than a month and it is already apparent that Android Tablet apps are in their infancy, there are plenty of non-tablet apps on the market that work well on a large high res display but most of them are games&#8230; There&#8217;s quite a lack of non gaming apps [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I have had my Tablet for less than a month and it is already apparent that Android Tablet apps are in their infancy, there are plenty of non-tablet apps on the market that work well on a large high res display but most of them are games&#8230; There&#8217;s quite a lack of non gaming apps that make full use of the full screen real estate offered by today&#8217;s honeycomb tablets. </p>
<p>Obviously the situation will improve and it&#8217;s only a matter of time before the Android Tablet scene explodes and with the recent release of the full Honeycomb SDK those days are coming closer. Until that day here&#8217;s a nice list of some of the best Tablet optimized apps I&#8217;ve found on the market, please feel free to add your finds in the comments and I&#8217;ll probably end up adding them to the article. Also keep your eyes peeled for a new post in the next few days for a new android games article&#8230;</p>
<p><span id="more-2937"></span></p>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.beansoft.keyboardplus&#038;feature=search_result">Thumb Keyboard</span> [€1.32]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/885221217.png"></a></p>
<p>This keyboard is a godsend for tablet users and this is one of the reasons I love Android so much, anyone can come along and replace something like the keyboard with a much better version. The main reason thumb keyboard is so handy is because, as you can see above it rearranges the keys so that you can type with your thumbs very easily and quickly whilst holding the device. The keyboard also has a configurable extra top row of buttons and a much improved normal qwerty keyboard. It is echelons above the stock keyboard.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.taptu.streams&#038;feature=search_result">Taptu</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/135864185.jpg"></a></p>
<p>Very much like the pulse app, but this one looks a lot nice and works a lot more smoothly on tablet devices. Browsing articles is as easy as swiping around. I use this every day to keep up on news and websites. One of the best features is the built in &#8220;mashups&#8221; they have taken a lot of streams from different websites and sources to make general streams, so it&#8217;s easy to keep up with multiple Android websites for example.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.cyandroid.piano&#038;feature=search_result">xPiano</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/924967833.jpg"></a></p>
<p>There&#8217;s not much to say about this app, it&#8217;s a great piano app and it scales very well to tablets and works like a dream. Lots of keys and lots of options. You can also record and play back your taps. There is also a beta on the market for sharing songs, you can download songs from it to your tablet and learn how to play them with a friendly user interface.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.chriswstewart.twitter&#038;feature=search_result">Tweetcomb</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/241062759.jpg"></a></p>
<p>This is a really nicely tablet optimised Twitter app, arranging your tweets into 3 columns and keeping everything very &#8220;honeycomby&#8221; in style. Personally I would like to see some more personalisation of the 3 columns as I don&#8217;t tweet much or get mentions so I&#8217;m still only using one of the columns mainly.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelup.touiteur&#038;feature=search_result">Plume</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/375882345.jpg"></a></p>
<p>Another Twitter app, but this one is free, has been around for a while and recently got a Honeycomb makeover, it looks nice and there are a lot of features packed in there too, am currently trying to decide whether I like tweetcomb or plume better&#8230; Plume does seem to have more options but I still wish there were more ways to customise those panels.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.handmark.friendstream&#038;feature=search_result">Friendcaster</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/831257842.jpg"></a></p>
<p>A neat little facebook app which lets you browse and comment on your friend updates in a tablet friendly interface, there&#8217;s not a whole lot of options to it but it&#8217;s well put together and if you like this sort of thing it&#8217;s pretty good.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.levelokment.storageanalyser&#038;feature=search_result">Storage Analyser</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/599739666.jpg"></a></p>
<p>This app is very useful for managing the storage space on your honeycomb tablet, it&#8217;s not the most flashy looking app but it does the job very well and makes very good use of tablet screen sizes. It basically shows you a breakdown of the size of all the folders on your storage device and allows you to drill down directory by directory.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.cnn.mobile.android.tablet&#038;feature=search_result">CNN</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/485850951.jpg"></a></p>
<p>A fantastic news app for tablets, the CNN app gives you a big wall of articles and videos you can swipe through and it all works pretty smoothly. The only downside is that for those outside of the US it&#8217;s all a bit US centric.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.devhd.feedly&#038;feature=search_result">Feedly</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/210/400/uploads/143378276.jpg"> <img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/210/400/uploads/624240492.jpg"> <img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/210/400/uploads/983829685.jpg"></a></p>
<p>This app has grown on me, it allows you only to view it portrait mode as seen in the pictures above and to start with I didn&#8217;t like this. However once you get used to it there&#8217;s this strange feeling that you&#8217;re holding a book or paper&#8230; It has a lot of inbuilt feeds or you can bring in your own feeds from google reader it&#8217;s all laid out very nicely and it a joy to use.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.aws.android.squall&#038;feature=search_result">Weatherbug</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/228551195.jpg"></a></p>
<p>If you need a nice looking weather application for Honeycomb then look no further than Weatherbug, this lovely card based forecast system is scrollable and suits the tablet screen quite well&#8230; There are also radar features like there are in the standard version.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.amazon.kindle&#038;feature=search_result">Kindle</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/396432405.jpg"></a></p>
<p>Kindle is a great app if even for reading some of the free classics that are available on the Kindle store, it has been well optimised for the Tablet and works smoothly and without crashes. The only feature I would like would be to have two pages side by side in landscape mode. I know it&#8217;s kind of superficial but I likes what I likes.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.thewongandonly.android&#038;feature=search_result">Draw! tablet edition</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/893089183.jpg"></a></p>
<p>This is a great little drawing app, probably the best one I&#8217;ve used, not a whole lot of features but the features it has work well and it&#8217;s kept really simple for you.</p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.shinycore.picsaypro&#038;feature=search_result">Picsay Pro</span>  [€2.99]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/686207952.jpg"></a></p>
<p>I have been using this on my phone for a very long time, it&#8217;s a great app for editing photos, adding captions and lots more. It has been recently updated to work even better on tablet devices and it feels so much better than using it on a phone. </p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=org.hystudio.android.dosbox&#038;feature=search_result">aDosBox</span> [FREE]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/294078859.jpg"></a></p>
<p>The great dosbox app for PC has made it to Android and there have been a few good features added recently which makes it worth checking out. The games I have tried playing have worked flawlessly and although the touch interface is a little strange it still works especially for point and click games which I love <img src='http://chaoticsignal.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':D' class='wp-smiley' /> </p></blockquote>
<blockquote><p><strong><span style="font-size: 25px; color: #225588;"><a target="_blank" href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.arron.taskManager&#038;feature=search_result">Advanced Task Manager</span> [$0.99]</strong><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/uploads/769397552.jpg"></a></p>
<p>Recently added support for Honeycomb makes Advanced task manager look really snappy on a tablet screen. It also works extremely well, kills apps instantly and gives you a lot more options to boot.</p></blockquote>
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		<item>
		<title>Bang Bang Racing Tegra Review (Android)</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chaoticsignal/~3/aq-c7DBiCGE/bang-bang-racing-tegra-review-android</link>
		<comments>http://chaoticsignal.com/2011/05/14/bang-bang-racing-tegra-review-android#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 14 May 2011 13:02:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Skyfall</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Android]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bang Bang Racing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tablets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tegra 2]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://chaoticsignal.com/?p=2907</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On the grid It&#8217;s been a quiet but rewarding road for Tegra 2 Tablets over the past few months, with little optimised games being released but most being great to play, the wait for the next big game is almost unbearable and I have been waiting for this game to come out for Android ever [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="captainr"><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/900/900/image/screenshots/bang%20bang%20racing/P20110514122531.jpg" target="_blank" title="" rel="lightbox[bbr]"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/150/150/image/screenshots/bang%20bang%20racing/P20110514122531.jpg" width="150" border="0" class="border" alt=""></a><br />On the grid</div>
<p>It&#8217;s been a quiet but rewarding road for Tegra 2 Tablets over the past few months, with little optimised games being released but most being great to play, the wait for the next big game is almost unbearable and I have been waiting for this game to come out for Android ever since I heard about it, the game looks crisp and fresh and definitely one of the most promising looking Tegra games to be announced. </p>
<p>There is still a long way to go for gaming on Android Tablets and Tegra could do with another feather in it&#8217;s cap, god knows it needs more like Bang Bang Racing&#8230;<br />
<span id="more-2907"></span><br />
First are the controls&#8230; The controls have had a lot of stick but Playbox released an update to give us 4 control styles instead of one, I can&#8217;t put into words how much better this makes the game and how much easier it is to play in different positions. The default control scheme is to touch where you want to go and drag closer or further away to change speed. This was previously the only control scheme and it works but it&#8217;s not for everyone and takes a bit of getting used to. Thankfully the other control methods are more conventional and all work pretty well too, you&#8217;ll find your way with one of them.</p>
<p>The graphics in Bang Bang racing use pretty much all of the power that&#8217;s built into Tegra 2 and squeeze out a beautiful looking game. From the moment you enter a track with a sweeping overview of the track you know this is something special. Playbox have also put down some really nice car designs, they look sporty and cute at the same time, it helps to remind you that this isn&#8217;t a serious racing game but a fun frolic with cars. </p>
<div class="captainc" style="margin-bottom:10px;padding:5px;"><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/900/900/image/screenshots/bang%20bang%20racing/P20110514122436.jpg" target="_blank" title="" rel="lightbox[bbr]"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/640/640/image/screenshots/bang%20bang%20racing/P20110514122436.jpg" alt="" /></a><br />Tracks look great in motion</div>
<p>Playbox have done a great job with the 8 available tracks, each one has it&#8217;s own personality and feeling, thanks to the different lighting conditions and detailed features you get a lot of variety when going through the championships. Tracks can also be played in reverse so you get 16 tracks for the price of 8. Most tracks also have a lot of shortcuts, this allows you to sneak ahead of the competition and the overhead nature of the game means shortcuts are easy to see but not always so easy to take! Many time&#8217;s I&#8217;ve decided to go for the shortcut too late and hit the tire wall and I like that, it adds some risk/reward to the play. </p>
<p>The other thing you may notice is that there is not map for the track when racing so you have to guess where you&#8217;re going until you learn the tracks and I personally think it&#8217;s probably a good thing, once you&#8217;ve played them a few times the tracks are pretty memorable so you get that feeling that experience is paying off and learning the track is rewarding.</p>
<div class="captainl"><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/900/900/image/screenshots/bang%20bang%20racing/P20110514122356.jpg" target="_blank" title="" rel="lightbox[bbr]"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/150/150/image/screenshots/bang%20bang%20racing/P20110514122356.jpg" width="150" border="0" class="border" alt=""></a><br />Menus</div>
<p>The game itself is mainly about the championship mode with 4 different championships which will take you through all of the courses and all of the available cars. It&#8217;s nice to have so many cars to choose from and such a variety so as you progress your cars are getting faster and you don&#8217;t have to use the same one twice. I love the design of the cars too, they manage to look quick and stylish but also retain that micro machines type shape giving an air of fun.</p>
<p>I guess the last thing to tackle is the audio, there&#8217;s not much to say about it really, there&#8217;s a nice music track when you&#8217;re racing through levels and sounds to accompany every vehicle but nothing really stands out in this regard and that&#8217;s not a problem either, the music and sound seem to fit very well with the feel of the game and never get too risky.<br />
<strong><br />
All in all Bang Bang Racing is a great addition to the Android line up and the best looking racing game on Android with a lot of fun to be had if you stick at the controls and give it a chance, worth every penny at the current price of £4.90. </strong></p>
<p><center><br />
<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="640" height="360" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="bgcolor" value="ffffff" /><param name="flashvars" value="file=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6pAtVenBt4&amp;backcolor=ffffff&amp;frontcolor=000000&amp;lightcolor=000000&amp;screencolor=000000&amp;bufferlength=1&amp;image=http://media.csignal.org/bbr.jpg&amp;controlbar=over&amp;plugins=sharing-1&amp;sharing.link=http://chaoticsignal.com/2011/05/14/bang-bang-racing-tegra-review-android" /><param name="src" value="http://media.csignal.org/player/player.swf" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="360" src="http://media.csignal.org/player/player.swf" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="file=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6pAtVenBt4&amp;backcolor=ffffff&amp;frontcolor=000000&amp;lightcolor=000000&amp;screencolor=000000&amp;bufferlength=1&amp;image=http://media.csignal.org/bbr.jpg&amp;controlbar=over&amp;plugins=sharing-1&amp;sharing.link=http://chaoticsignal.com/2011/05/14/bang-bang-racing-tegra-review-android" bgcolor="ffffff"></embed></object><br />
Also available on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6pAtVenBt4" target="_blank">Youtube</a></p>
<p><center><strong><img style="vertical-align: middle; margin-bottom: 1px;" src="/icon/bullet.png" alt="" /> <a href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.playboxgames.bangbangracing&#038;feature=search_result" target="_blank">Bang Bang Racing on the Android Market</a><br />
<img style="vertical-align: middle; margin-bottom: 1px;" src="/icon/bullet.png" alt="" /> <a href="http://playboxgames.com/?p=23" target="_blank">Bang Bang Racing official site</a></strong></center><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/900/900/image/screenshots/bang%20bang%20racing/P20110514121934.jpg" target="_blank" title="" rel="lightbox[bbr]"></a><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/900/900/image/screenshots/bang%20bang%20racing/P20110514122700.jpg" target="_blank" title="" rel="lightbox[bbr]"></a><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/900/900/image/screenshots/bang%20bang%20racing/P20110514122231.jpg" target="_blank" title="" rel="lightbox[bbr]"></a><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/sizer/900/900/image/screenshots/bang%20bang%20racing/P20110514121918.jpg" target="_blank" title="" rel="lightbox[bbr]"></a></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Make animated gifs from Videos and Movies</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chaoticsignal/~3/pgh920Czoxs/make-animated-gifs-from-videos-and-movies</link>
		<comments>http://chaoticsignal.com/2010/10/12/make-animated-gifs-from-videos-and-movies#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:33:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Skyfall</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Web]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Animated GIF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tutorial]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://chaoticsignal.com/?p=2877</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I love those little animated gifs around the web and especially like the ones derived from videos, either used as an animated avatar or as a quick movie that you can embed anywhere. So I had a little search around but I couldn&#8217;t find a fully formed guide on how to convert video into an [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I love those little animated gifs around the web and especially like the ones derived from videos, either used as an animated avatar or as a quick movie that you can embed anywhere. So I had a little search around but I couldn&#8217;t find a fully formed guide on how to convert video into an animated gif&#8230; So here it is, a relatively quick and easy guide on how to convert video/movie files into animated gifs.</p>
<p><strong>Programs you will need:<br />
<a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualdubmod/files/VirtualDubMod/VirtualDubMod%201.5.10.2/" target="_blank">Virtual Dub Mod</a> (Download the all inclusive zip)<br />
<a href="http://www.jhepple.com/gif_animator.htm" target="_blank">Microsoft Gif Animator</a></strong></p>
<p>Both of these are free and available to use without even installing, great <img src='http://chaoticsignal.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':D' class='wp-smiley' />  Read on for the full guide on how to prepare your video file, how to convert it into an animated gif and how to get the best results.<span id="more-2877"></span></p>
<p>First off you&#8217;ll need to find the video you want to convert into an animated gif, I chose the Wrath Of the Lich King trailer from WoW for the purpose of the demonstration. Open up VirtualDubMod and drag and drop the video file into the window, you should see something like this:</p>
<p><center><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/VirtualDubMod.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/VirtualDubMod.jpg" alt="VirtualDubMod" width="640" border="0"></a></center></p>
<p>Next we need to select the portion of the video we want to output to a gif file as we don&#8217;t want to output the whole thing, so use the seek bar until you&#8217;ve found the place where you want to start the gif, if you&#8217;re finding it a bit tricky to find the right start place you can use your arrow keys to move forward and back one frame for more precision. Now just press the <img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/start.png"> button which will mark the start of the segment. Next do the same for where you want to end the gif (it&#8217;s probably best to limit them to 10 seconds or so for size) and then press the <img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/end.png">  button to mark the end. You should have something that looks like this:</p>
<p><center><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/VirtualDubMod%202.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/VirtualDubMod%202.jpg" alt="VirtualDubMod" width="212" border="0"></a></center></p>
<p>Next we need to click into the &#8216;<strong>video</strong>&#8216; menu and click on &#8216;<strong>frame rate</strong>&#8216; option, under &#8216;<strong>Frame rate conversion</strong>&#8216; select the &#8216;<strong>convert to fps:</strong>&#8216; radio button and then pop <strong>10</strong> into the box as below, this has told VirtualDubMod that we want to change the fps down to a more appropriate frame rate for animated gifs.</p>
<p><center><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/Video%20frame%20rate%20control.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/Video%20frame%20rate%20control.jpg" alt="VirtualDubMod" width="512" border="0"></a></center></p>
<p>Next we need to resize it, this file is 720p so much too big for an animated gif, so click into the &#8216;<strong>video</strong>&#8216; menu again and click &#8216;<strong>filters</strong>&#8216;, you should be presented with a blank window so press add to add a filter. Next scroll down until you see &#8216;<strong>resize</strong>&#8216; and double click and you should see the window below, I&#8217;ve chosen 425 as a width and 181 as a height, as I&#8217;ve found this to be a good size. Remember the bigger the resolution the bigger the resulting filesize. There is no &#8220;maintain aspect ratio&#8221; option so you will have to use a tool like <a href="http://www.scriptygoddess.com/resources/proportioncalc.htm" target="_blank">this</a> to make sure you get the proportions correct otherwise your animated gif may be distorted. Don&#8217;t forget to select &#8216;<strong>bilinear</strong>&#8216; as the filter mode for a good outcome.</p>
<p><center><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/Add%20Filter.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/Add%20Filter.jpg" alt="virtualdubmod" width="300" border="0"></a> <a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/Filter_resize.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/Filter_resize.jpg" alt="virtualdubmod" width="300" border="0"></a></center></p>
<p>Ok now we&#8217;re done in VirtualDubMod, all you have to do now is to click on &#8216;<strong>file</strong>&#8216; and &#8216;<strong>save as</strong>&#8216; and leave it as the default &#8216;<strong>avi</strong>&#8216;, it should run a quick processing task and then you&#8217;ll have an AVI file ready to go.</p>
<p>Next open up Gif Animator and click the open button <img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/open.png"> (<strong>do not drag and drop</strong> this does not always work) and browse to the avi file and click open. It will take a few seconds but after it has opened you will be presented with something similar to this:</p>
<p><center><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/gif%20animator.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/gif%20animator.jpg" width="414" alt="gif animator" border="0"></a></center></p>
<p>First of all click on the image tab:</p>
<p><center><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/gif%20animator%203.jpg" rel="lightbox"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/gif%20animator%203.jpg" width="414" alt="gif animator" border="0"></a></center></p>
<p>Then click the &#8220;<strong>select all</strong>&#8221; button which looks like this, <img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/select%20all.png">. And in the field where it says &#8216;<strong>duration</strong>&#8216; pop in 10, this tells the program to give each frame a duration of 10ms which is the same as 10 frames per second. Make sure this tallies with the framerate you put in virtualdubmod otherwise your animation will run too fast or too slow. The higher the framerate the lower this number will be 15 fps would be 6 or 7ms, 20fps would be 5ms and so on, the easiest way to do this is <strong>divide 100 by the framerate</strong>.  Next click on the animation tab and tick the boxes for &#8216;<strong>Looping</strong>&#8216; and &#8216;<strong>Repeat forever</strong>&#8216; this tells Gif Animator to repeat the animation over and over again.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s pretty much it, all you have to do now is click save <img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/animated%20gif%20tutorial/save.png">, it may take a minute or two to output the file depending on the length and resolution of the animation and if the program looks like it has frozen don&#8217;t worry, this is normal, it usually gets to about frame 40 for me and the interface freezes, but it is still working in the background and should output the gif file normally. Once that&#8217;s done you should end up with something that looks like this:</p>
<p><center><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/889549221.jpg" onclick='javascript:(this.src=="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/889549221.jpg"?this.src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/animated/wotlk.gif":"")'></center></p>
<p>Enjoy your new animated gif and by all means mess around with the options, try different frame rates, resolutions and dithering modes, you&#8217;ll probably find a happy medium between framerate and image quality.</p>
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		<title>Android wallpapers gathered by Picasa</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chaoticsignal/~3/kYqkUx9rw9Y/android-wallpapers-gathered-by-picasa</link>
		<comments>http://chaoticsignal.com/2010/10/11/android-wallpapers-gathered-by-picasa#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:44:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Skyfall</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Gadgets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Android]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Picasa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wallpaper]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://chaoticsignal.com/?p=2870</guid>
		<description />
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span id="more-2870"></span><center><img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.11NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyODY4MjU4NjYzMzAmcHQ9MTI4NjgyNTg3MTgwNCZwPTkwMjA1MSZkPSZnPTEmb2Y9MA==.gif" /><object id="ci_59512_o" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="640" height="480"><param name="movie" value="http://apps.cooliris.com/embed/cooliris.swf"/><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"/><param name="bgColor" value="#121212" /><param name="flashvars" value="z=ULgsjWoC0oSv" /><param name="wmode" value="opaque" /><embed id="ci_59512_e" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://apps.cooliris.com/embed/cooliris.swf" width="640" height="480" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" bgColor="#121212" flashvars="z=ULgsjWoC0oSv" wmode="opaque"></embed></object><br />
</center></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Halo Reach Hemorrhage vs Halo Blood Gulch</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chaoticsignal/~3/EpXtvnAiU3w/halo-reach-hemorrhage-vs-halo-blood-gulch</link>
		<comments>http://chaoticsignal.com/2010/09/28/halo-reach-hemorrhage-vs-halo-blood-gulch#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:12:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Skyfall</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Images]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bungie]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Combat Evolved]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Halo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Halo Reach]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hemorrhage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Microsoft]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[xbox]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[xbox 360]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://chaoticsignal.com/?p=2836</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In the third Halo Reach post of recent weeks I bring you a comparison featuring the original blood gulch from Halo and Hemorrhage from Halo Reach. I dug these screenshots out of my old files, apologies for the watermarks on the old images I used to run a site many years ago called futurecube and [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span id="more-2836"></span>In the third Halo Reach post of recent weeks I bring you a comparison featuring the original blood gulch from Halo and Hemorrhage from Halo Reach. I dug these screenshots out of my old files, apologies for the watermarks on the old images I used to run a site many years ago called futurecube and I didn&#8217;t keep the original images. Anyway, I thought I would recreate the old images in the new game <img src='http://chaoticsignal.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':D' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>One of the interesting things about the comparison is to think that this is only one generation of hardware, from the xbox to the xbox 360, but you can see the massive difference in quality and detail. You&#8217;ll also notice the pallete change from orange and green to a much greener and cleaner map. It still feels the same when playing and is still my favourite map ever. So behold xbox vs xbox 360:</p>
<p><center><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/520491180.jpg" width="640" height="360" alt="Halo CE screenshot"><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/741155805.jpeg" width="640" alt="Halo Reach screenshot"></p>
<p><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/456541178.gif"></p>
<p><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/746433025.jpg" width="640" height="360"  alt="Halo CE screenshot"></p>
<p><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/723465952.jpg" width="640" alt="Halo Reach screenshot"></p>
<p><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/456541178.gif"></p>
<p><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/296273402.jpg" width="640" height="360"  alt="Halo CE screenshot"><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/105987817.jpg" width="640" alt="Halo Reach screenshot"></p>
<p><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/456541178.gif"></p>
<p><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/595629165.jpg" width="640" height="360"  alt="Halo CE screenshot"><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/717107147.jpeg" width="640" alt="Halo Reach screenshot"></p>
<p><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/456541178.gif"></p>
<p><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/838126978.jpg" width="640" height="360"  alt="Halo CE screenshot"><br />
<img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/586708581.jpg" width="640" alt="Halo Reach screenshot"><br />
</center></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Make Halo Reach panoramas with Hugin</title>
		<link>http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/chaoticsignal/~3/3c-jP7wkjrs/make-halo-reach-panoramas-with-hugin</link>
		<comments>http://chaoticsignal.com/2010/09/16/make-halo-reach-panoramas-with-hugin#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:24:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Skyfall</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Guides]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Halo Reach]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Microsoft]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[panorama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tiltorama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wide angle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[xbox 360]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://chaoticsignal.com/?p=2812</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is a little guide I&#8217;ve put together so you can make Halo Reach panoramas using free programs as not all of us can afford or even like Photoshop. I assure you it is simple and not as time consuming as you might think, just make sure you follow the guide fully or you may [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This is a little guide I&#8217;ve put together so you can make Halo Reach panoramas using free programs as not all of us can afford or even like Photoshop. I assure you it is simple and not as time consuming as you might think, just make sure you follow the guide fully or you may get strange results.</p>
<p>Programs you need:<br />
<a href="http://hugin.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank"><strong>Hugin</strong></a> &#8211; Program for making panoramas.<br />
<a href="http://www.getpaint.net/" target="_blank"><strong>Paint .net</strong></a> &#8211; If you don&#8217;t already have an image editing program.<br />
<strong>Halo Reach</strong> &#8211; <img src='http://chaoticsignal.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif' alt=':D' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>Read on for a full guide on how to take the screenshots you need, how to add them all together into a panorama and how to get the best results for your panoramas.<span id="more-2812"></span></p>
<p>First of all you need to find the scene you want to panoramize (is it a word? IDK), so jump into theater in Halo and find something that you think might look good. I&#8217;m not going to tell you how to make a good screenshot because I don&#8217;t really know either. </p>
<p>Once you&#8217;ve found the angle you want figure out where you want the center of the image to be and now do not touch the left analog stick again.</p>
<p>Take your first screenshot and upload it. Now here&#8217;s the bit that requires a little time and effort, firstly we&#8217;ll assume you want to do a horizontal panorama, use the right stick to pan to the right, make sure you&#8217;re only moving horizontally and not diagonally. The trick here is to make sure each image flows from the last and there is an overlap for each image of about 40% of the width. For example look at what&#8217;s at the very right hand side of the screen, if you&#8217;ve panned right by the right amount what was at the very right of the first screenshot will be just to the right of the center of the first screenshot like in the example below:</p>
<p><center><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/halo_reach/panorama_overlap.jpg" border="0" width="640" alt="halo reach panorama overlap image"></center></p>
<p>Repeat until you think you have gone far enough to the right and then return to the center and do the same to the left, you don&#8217;t always have to go left AND right, some panoramas look good the the subject being at the far right or left.</p>
<p>Next jump onto Bungie.net and view your files, find all the screenshots you took for that panorama and download the high res versions to your computer, I usually find it best to put them in their own folder so it&#8217;s easy to know which shots are part of which panorama.</p>
<p>Next open up Hugin and you should get the screen below:</p>
<p><center><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/halo_reach/hugin_01.jpg" border="0" width="640" alt="halo reach panorama in hugin"></center></p>
<p>Click on Load images and select all of the images that are part of your panorama, or if you&#8217;ve put them all in a folder on their own CTRL+A to select them all. It will now pop up with a box asking for the field of view (FOV), Halo Reach&#8217;s FOV is 70deg so just put 70 in the FOV box, don&#8217;t change anything else, if it pops up again just enter 70 again.</p>
<p>At this point it is worth noting that if you want to you can zoom the camera (pressing the right stick) and make panoramas that way too, however when doing the above step use 35 as the FOV instead.</p>
<p>Now click the &#8220;Align&#8221; button and (depending on how many images you&#8217;ve selected) it will take a few minutes to resize the images and then align them all together. Once done you should end up with the window below:</p>
<p><center><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/halo_reach/hugin_02.jpg" border="0" width="640" alt="halo reach panorama in hugin"></center></p>
<p>This is where we have to select where the image should be centered, it may already look straight, just click the mouse on the image where it should be centered. You should normally center it on your first screenshot but you can experiment, if you need to start again just go back and click align again, don&#8217;t worry this time it will be a lot faster. Remember in this window it is impossible to get a perfect rectangle, the image will probably look a funny shape, have large black areas or even be upside down, this is not a problem and is normal. For example, the images below would all be normal for an output.</p>
<p>You may also have to rotate the image a little, especially with vertical panoramas. Use the right mouse button to click in the direction it should be rotated and it should straighten up, this is a little trial and error though, so get used to it. There is no OK button on this window so just close it.</p>
<p><center><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/halo_reach/hugin_03.jpg" border="0" width="640" alt="halo reach panorama in hugin"></center></p>
<p>Guess what the next step is! Press &#8220;create panorama&#8221; again just select where you want to put the finished file and sit back while the program does all the work. It may take a few minutes.</p>
<p>You should now have an output file which may look something like this:</p>
<p><center><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/halo_reach/pano_raw.jpg" border="0" width="640"alt="halo reach panorama hugin output"></center></p>
<p>At this point if you want to, you can use Photoshop, Paintshop or your favourite image editing software, you should know how to crop the image in that, if not search for help. But for the purpose of this tutorial I&#8217;ll show you how to do it in Paint.NET as it&#8217;s free and legal, so anyone can follow the instructions.</p>
<p>All you should have to do now is to use the selection tool:</p>
<p><center><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/halo_reach/paint_05.jpg" border="0" width="640"alt="halo reach panorama in paint.net"></center></p>
<p>And drag a box around the parts of the image you want to keep, as you can see you may need to lose some of the image to make it a neat rectangle, just try and get the biggest rectangle you can out of it. Then click &#8216;Image&#8217; and &#8216;Crop to selection&#8217;:</p>
<p><center><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/halo_reach/paint_06.jpg" border="0" width="640"alt="halo reach panorama in paint.net"></center></p>
<p>Now you should have the image you want, if for some reason the image is upside down just go to<br />
&#8216;Image&#8217; and then &#8216;Flip Vertical&#8217;. </p>
<p>Click &#8216;File&#8217; then &#8216;Save&#8217; and there you have your panorama <img src='http://chaoticsignal.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p><center><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/halo_reach/halo_reach_panorama.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/articles/halo_reach/halo_reach_panorama_640.jpg" border="0" width="640"alt="halo reach panorama"></a></center></p>
<p>Please enjoy and feel free to share your panoramas here <img src='http://chaoticsignal.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p><strong>A few extra tips:</strong><br />
You can not only create panoramas going left to right and up or down, you could also capture a zig-zag pattern to make a large wide angle image. For example, capture 3 screens left to right, then move up a screen and repeat in the other direction.</p>
<p>Mess about with the settings in Hugin a bit, there are options for compact fisheye type views and sometimes it may be worth chopping and changing styles to suit the shot.</p>
<p>Don&#8217;t be afraid to try new things, experiment with different angles and different sizes, I&#8217;ve made some big panoramas from halo shots, it&#8217;s nice to have something unique, so go crazy!<br />
<strong><br />
Here&#8217;s a few others I made earlier:</strong><br />
<center><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/screenshots/halo%20reach/Zealot.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/314168481.jpg" border="0" width="640"alt="halo reach panorama"></a></center></p>
<p><center><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/screenshots/halo%20reach/boardwalk_01.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/420777510.jpg" border="0" width="640"alt="halo reach panorama"></a></center></p>
<p><center><a href="http://chaoticsignal.com/image/screenshots/halo%20reach/boardwalk_02.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://chaoticsignal.com/uploads/535203202.jpeg" border="0" height="640"alt="halo reach panorama"></a></center></p>
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